Yay :) another successful upload. Thank you to ShadowVampireGirl, Skeletal Princess and KuroKira MCLOLZ for being awesome and reviewing :3
I was listening to Cold by Jorge Méndez as I was writing this chapter so it might seem over dramatically miserable. Please let me know if you found it too cliché or stiflingly weird.
Warning(s): This chapter contains self-mutilation. Not in the emotionally troubled sense but just self-slicing all the same and it might be triggering. I don't want to upset anyone so if you think it will be distressing read at your own risk.
Ugh short chapter but meh. It felt right to finish there.
The first time Vlad attempted to ascend from the couch after his incident with the slayers he couldn't walk. The very moment he'd been alone in balance, gravity betrayed him. His limbs felt so very heavy and he was so, so weak.
He hadn't told anyone of his attempts to walk, the embarrassment of his failure being as good of a silence as fear of a second betrayal. In place of his legs he'd started using Ingrid's wheelchair but he didn't move much; he was exhausted so much faster than he originally would have been.
He winced as Renfield used a thin kitchen knife to lever a clump of dried blood out of one of the unhealed needle wounds. The majority of the pencil-sized incisions had healed but several, mainly at key points of the body (heart-area, base of the skull, joints, etcetera), hadn't and the Dracula servant insisted on doing numerous tests.
"It's argentalium. I can't understand how but it's in his blood." When Renfield announced that news there was a sudden cluster of questions.
"Wouldn't it have worn off by now?"
"When should we butcher them?"
"How do I get it out?"
"Excuse me but - what's argentalium?"
Everyone looked at the breather and Ingrid answered. "It's a metal that drains our powers."
Vlad shifted awkwardly in the chair to look behind him at the group bunched around a petri dish. "What does this make me then?" He looked at the white scars on his arms. "Am I just a walking argentalium beacon?"
Renfield frowned at him. "Yes."
"Right." Ingrid cut in, "how do we undo this crap then?"
The servant looked down at the black splotch in the dish. "We can't unless we locate the source in Vlad's body."
Vlad's hand traced the outline of the scar tissue subconsciously. "…and you don't know how do you?"
At Vlad's question Renfield shook his head.
Vlad shut his eyes and shook his head in a silent sigh.
"Renfield!" The Count snatched the servant by the ear. "Do something!" The Chosen One glanced at the group again before wheeling out the room.
He made it back up to his room with difficultly and managed to stand long enough to slump on the sofa.
Does this make me a cripple? He wondered and an emotion akin to fear rose in his chest. Was he a broken vampire? Yes. He couldn't use his powers or his legs. He held a hand out loosely in front of him, ignoring the silvery mutilation at the base of his hand. He tried to draw the power in his blood to his palm in an attempt to produce a fireball. A measly trickle of energy found its way to his hand and a match-sized flame flicked and withered in his palm.
His eyebrows screwed tightly around his nose as his palm closed and he angrily swung in frustration. His palm hit the table painlessly with an unnaturally metallic thunk.
Hang on.
A metallic thunk?
He raised the offending limp to his face and rotated it, examining the faintly scarred flesh.
He hit the table again.
Thunk!
What?
This time he investigated his hand more closely, tilting the fingers back and forth as well as gently poking at his skin.
He couldn't tell what but there was something weird about the solidness of his hand. He grabbed a pair of scissors the shelf next to him and dug it straight into his hand. The feeling of layers of surface being ripped apart was extremely painful, reminding him almost too much of the feeling of needles, but he very quickly hit bone. Or something at least.
He honestly couldn't feel the scissors against his bone. This was pretty much understandable as his hand was currently leaking black blood from the huge hole he'd just made in his hand but Vlad had a high pain threshold and he'd remembered the needles scraping against his bones as the slayers did whatever they did.
Slowly he removed the scissors. They came away stained black and Vlad flung them aside. There was a glimmer of something in the wound and he raised his hand to his eyes.
Oh my god.
Alex McCauley's eyes lingered on the door that Vlad had just left through. He'd just been told that he could be like that forever, and as he was a vampire she reallymeant forever.
She'd always been concerned about Vlad and his difference from the people at school but now, she assumed that finding out he was a vampire would answer all of her questions.
But they didn't feel answered.
She knew why he was so changed from the world around him now. His undead status had left him dealing with things only an immortal could but he was only a child, he'd lived a shorter life than her.
She'd thought that learning that he was a vampire would solve her worries and she would understand why he was so different but she was only given more questions.
And she realised that Vlad was as different from his own kind as he was from humans.
Vladimir Count- no, Dracula was new, even to his own species.
Tell me what you think :)